WB polls: Mobile app to help voters plan their visit to booths

Voters in all four constituencies of South Kolkata, which will go to the polls on Saturday, can plan their visit to polling booths with the help of a mobile app that shows the number of voters in queue.

The app, ‘Q4U’, will facilitate electors by informing them how long the queue is.

“We have asked the polling personnel to update us with data on queues every 40 minutes. As soon as we get the data it will be uploaded for anyone to see in the mobile app,” Smita Pandey, district electoral officer, Kolkata South, said.

The voter just needs to download the app from Google Playstore and enter the EPIC (voter ID card) details to know approximately how many voters are there in the queue at any given point of time.

“This is part of our effort to ensure that voters do not get turned away due to long queues,” officials said.

Those who can’t use the queue management app can send SMS to 7022192666 with their EPIC number and will get an SMS reply with queue information.

A number of political heavyweights, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party candidates who were purportedly seen in the Narada sting operation footage, are in the fray for the crucial fifth phase of West Bengal Assembly poll on Saturday.

Altogether 349 candidates, including 43 women, are trying their luck in 53 constituencies of South 24 Parganas, Kolkata south and Hooghly districts that will go to polls on Saturday. Polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm at over 14,500 booths for the 1.2 crore electorate.